Love Darkness 5: Machinations
by zeratulatb
Summary: A Love Darkness spin-off, with Riley as the main character. Stressed out at work and college, Riley, on her brother's advice goes on a much needed vacation. In Frankfurt, Germany she befriends a young woman, who, unknown to Riley, is part of a hacktivist group who recently took credit for a terrorist attack in Berlin.


**DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN VICTORiOUS. Unless otherwise noted, all chapters are from Riley's POV.**

**Prologue:**

**Stressed Out**

_2018_.

I hear a soft knocking on my door. I stir a little, but don't open my eyes.

"Rye? You need to get ready or you're gonna be late for work." I hear Vinny say. My eyes jerk open and I raise my head, looking around. I fell asleep at my desk working on class work. Shit!

Not much has happened since I graduated high school. Vinny and I moved out to San Francisco after our parents died in a car collision. Vinny and I are living in an apartment together, sharing rent. He works full time at a grocery store, but he doesn't make enough. I work part time and I'm attending college with a scholarship. We are doing fine though, as we got money from our parents that we are saving.

It's early May, so finals are coming up and the professors are throwing everything they can at us, because we have only so much time to learn. This has been driving me fucking insane. Between this and work, I'm about to have a nervous breakdown.

Where I work at, they're have been a lot of changes in management since I started working there and not all of the managers agree with each other on certain things and it's affecting the employees. A lot of them have put in their two weeks' notice already. Three have left this past month alone.

I'm so fucking stressed out, it isn't funny. I need a vacation. Badly.

So, I get up from the desk, which isn't a desk as it's a piece of shit table we found on the side of the road one day, and I start to change into new clothes. I do my makeup real quick and brush my hair. I brush my teeth, since I forgot to last night. I eat a quick breakfast and brush my teeth again and I leave for work. I get there within two minutes of the start of my shift. I think I'm gonna put in my two weeks' notice too. I've submitted applications for other jobs already and I hope I get a call back.

A few hours later, I'm back at the apartment, rushing to finish my homework that I fell asleep doing last night. Vinny is already gone for his job, so I won't see him until this evening.

I'm practically bullshitting some of my answers here. I mean, I'm trying, but I need to get to class before it starts and we are supposed to get the study guide for our finals today.

I finish and I rush to class, barely making it in time.

_Later, that evening._

Vinny arrived home and apparently found me fast asleep at my desk.

"You gotta do something, Rye; this is unhealthy." He says after shaking me awake.

"Yeah, hi, how are ya?" I ask sarcastically, yawning.

"I'm serious. You're not sleeping well and your job has become a nightmare. You need a break."

"Yeah, where am I gonna go? Europe?" I joke.

"You could if you wanted to."

"I was joking, Vinny. It's expensive to travel intercontinentally." I explain.

"You could use some of mom and dad's money."

"But, we're saving it!" I exclaim. I can't believe he's seriously suggesting this.

"For what? It's gonna be awhile before you and I can afford a place for ourselves and not live together." Vinny says.

"But, we should be smart with our money." I explain.

"Rye, you and I have saved enough money now to move into a better apartment. Plus, with mom and dad being doctors, they have saved a lot of money for us to use."

"I know, but I don't want to waste it all. That's not how I want to remember them, as our bank account." I say, sadly. I feel tears coming to my eyes. Vinny walks forward and embraces me.

"I know. I don't want to remember them like that either." He says, soothingly.

"I miss them so much." I say, tears falling down my face and into his shirt.

"I do, too. It's gonna be alright."

_The next day._

Since, I have the day off of work and school today, I decide to take up Vinny's advice and go on a vacation. I went to work to get a vacation request form and I started planning. I think I will go to Europe. I always wanted to go there. I'm very interested in Germany. It's supposed to be really nice out there.

I want to take a while off of work and school is just about over.

I'm looking up flights from here to Frankfurt and I decide to turn on the TV. I flip to the news and see that the international news is going on. And it's breaking news. I devote my full attention to the screen, out of curiosity.

"Breaking news here in Berlin, Germany. There has been an enormous gas explosion." A newscaster reports. Gas explosion? I watch the screen more intently, which shows shaky footage of a building in the city engulfed in flames and hundreds of citizens in the street screaming and running with police directing them away from the building which has begun to collapse from the flames. "The explosion was originally believed to have been attributed to a gas leak, but local police have received a cryptic message an hour after the incident. This is that message, translated in English." The newscaster explains. A box on the screen appears and wavelength lines appear. The lines start moving as the sound of scratching can be heard.

"We are the Vykyngs. This attack was the first of many to come." A heavily distorted voice said. It chilled me to the bone. I hope I don't have problems in Frankfurt.

"Interestingly enough, the group who calls themselves the Vykyngs are a known hacktivist group who have never shown any signs of escalating to full on terrorism. Police are investigating the Vykyngs right now. More about the Vykyngs after this break." The newscaster finishes as commercials start playing.

"Whoa." I say after staring at the screen for several minutes. "That's freaky."

During the commercial breaks I fill out my vacation request form and get tickets to travel to Frankfurt in a couple of weeks. I also grab some snacks as I continue to watch the news about the Vykyngs. It's very interesting. They are hackers, internet vigilantes, internet activists and are against cyber surveillance and censorship. None of which suggest they're a terrorist group. So why do this?

After the news, I deliver my form at work and come back home. I think Germany is going to be very interesting. Note to self, stay away from Berlin.

**zeratulatb presents:**

**A new VICTORiOUS Fanfiction:**

**A spin-off to Love Darkness**

**Love Darkness 5:**

**Machinations**

**I like Riley a lot, so I'm doing this spin-off series with her as the lead character. This story is canon to the Love Darkness universe. It takes place in 2018, after Tori was sentenced and before Love Darkness 2, which takes place in 2020. LD 5 sounds better than LD 1.25 in my opinion. I won't update until I have finished either Falling Walls or DOTS 2.**


End file.
